Tag Archives: Blog

WordPress & Tumblr are great publishing platforms where users can create customized & branded content which includes domain names. For tips on setting up a blog click here.

Today I am going to focus on how to write & publish a killer blog article on these platforms.

image via singlehop.com

When writing a blog article, your goals are to:

1. Educate & inform readers about your products & expertise

2. Engage your readers & build an audience

Let’s examine the features of a WordPress & Tumblr blog.

The Structure of the Blog Article

Title

The platform provides a place for a title.

Tool Bar

Underneath the title, there is a tool bar similar to one you would see in Microsoft word that allows writers to use headings, Bold, Italics, underline, center, bullet pints and numerical lists. Users can also use the tool bar to insert links, images, and videos. (tumblr users need to click the button on the side of the blog platform for the tool bar to appear.)

Body

Next, is the body of the platform where users can write the body of their content and lastly there is the SEO tags.

Pictures/Images

Users can also upload an image at through out their article, Bloggers should credit their image source whenever possible.

Writing on WordPress & tumblr

Now that we have described the inner workings of the the WordPress & tumblr blog, let’s describe how to write compelling posts.

Once you have chosen your topic you are ready to start writing. You must create a thesis which is the claims that you are making. This should be followed up with three to four paragraphs that prove your thesis, claim and assertion. Paragraphs should be 4 to 6 sentences when possible.

Within these paragraphs, you should use headings and sub headings along with bullet points so your text is easy to read. The text should be visually appealing to the reader.

In terms, of how long your post should be it is up to you. There is no set length, rather your post should be long enough to prove out your thesis, assertion and claim.

Title

Your title should reflect what the topic that you are writing about while being engaging to readers. Most people just skim the headlines as they are bombarded with content, in other words you have just seconds to catch their attention.

Popular titles include:

1. How to’s,

2. lists ex 7 ways to _______

3 A question.

4. Why ________

SEO tags Keywords

Make sure to pick keywords that reflect your topic and match the title and content

Images

Make sure when you upload images that reflect what your post is about.

Video’s/embeds

To enhance your text, you can embed videos and presentations from Slideshare & YouTube. This can be a strategy to re-purpose existing content.

Calls to action

Make sure that your posts have a call to action at the end. In other words, what action do you want your reader to take as a result of reading your post.

2. Through the Social Sharing buttons that include LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ & Twitter.

3. Through links

4. Ask questions of the reader that encourage them to comment and start a discussion.

This is how to write a blog post on WordPress & tumblr that engages readers & builds an audience.

What strategies do you use to write a blog post?

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. He has worked on various marketing assignments that include a Start Up, Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to Teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Representative in the Dental industry. In this role, he taught and trained Dentists on the company’s products and services using a consultative selling approach. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows & in the field through lead generation of Digital Technology along with large Dental Equipment.

Dan is seeking a full time marketing role in New York City. He is interested in roles in Direct, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.

High quality content created on a blog has amazing potential to be shared, increasing blog readership. However, just creating content; sharing it in its original form on many channels multiple times will continue to yield diminishing results. Results are diminishing because Social Networks and the blog-sphere continue to be bombarded with content. As a result, too much quality content will be overlooked. Now if you are reading this confused what to do next, relax you are not alone. When I started blogging I thought the very same thing. Here is where content repurposing can help.

Creating Channels for Content

However, before content can be repurposed, channels to share the content must be established in addition to a blog and LinkedIn . These additional channels that you create will ensure that your content reaches a broader audience which increases opportunities for social sharing. I would start by create accounts on other social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and Slideshare.

Rewriting/Repurposing a Blog article

Blogs can be republished on additional platforms. For example, I publish my content on WordPress, tumblr and LinkedIn.

The Title of the republished blog

The first I would do is to change the wording of the title or put the title in the form of a question. Putting the title in the form of a question invites the audience to weigh in.

Your title should reflect what the topic that you are writing about while being engaging to readers. Most people just skim the headlines as they are bombarded with content, in other words you have just seconds to catch their attention.

Additional popular titles include:

1. How to’s,

2. lists ex 7 ways to _______

Calls to Action

A great call to action would be: feel free to comment, or asking a question of the reader at the end of the post. By having a call to action to comment, readers are more likely to start a discussion and share the content. It is important to talk with your audience and not at them.

SEO tags/Keywords

Make sure to pick keywords that reflect your topic. WordPress and tumblr allow users to include as many as they would like while LinkedIn’s platform allows only three.

Images

Make sure when you upload an image that it reflects what your post is about.

About the Author section

I would add an about the author section at the bottom of each article. This is another great way to showcase the author’s expertise; incorporating a call to action such as: see how we can help or click here to sign up for a free demo.

Repurposing Formats beyond a blog

The contents of the article can be put into different formats such as: a PowerPoint, YouTube video, ebook, whitepaper, newsletter, publication and Podcast. All of these formats can be uploaded to Slideshare. The article can be published to LinkedIn’s publishing platform as well. Your article can also be written having presentations and videos embedded in the article itself. There are endless ways to repurpose content.

How have you repurposed your blog content? Comment below.

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. He has worked on various marketing assignments that include a Start Up, Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to Teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Representative in the Dental industry. In this role, he taught and trained Dentists on the company’s products and services using a consultative selling approach. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows & in the field through lead generation of Digital Technology along with large Dental Equipment.

Dan is seeking a full time marketing role in New York City. He is interested in roles in Direct, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.

Blogging is a great way to build your brand and market your products to the masses. Writing a blog allows you to demonstrate your expertise through writing. Blogging helps to provide prospects and customers with valuable information. Providing valuable information helps to position you as an expert and a resource.

Popular blog posts formats are: How to’s, book reviews, interviews, analysis of trends in your industry and best of’s. I was approached by many people as a result of my blog. Now you are asking the question, “How did you get the idea to blog?”

I decided to write a blog while working on an assignment in the education field. This assignment required me get other people to work on their writing. One of the prompts I used asked the question, “What do you know a lot about?”

Make a list of topics, choose one and write a research paper on this topic.

This writing prompt made me think about the topics that I knew a lot about. The topics were Sales, Marketing, and Social Media. As a result, I decided to put my thoughts on these topics in writing. I launched Dan Galante’s Sales and Marketing blog in November 2011.

A blog is very easy to set up. The major blogging platforms are WordPress and tumblr. Both sites allow users to register for free. If you want to choose a custom domain name there is a fee. WordPress directly offers domain names for sale on their site. With tumblr, you will need to go to an outside provider and redirect the site to tumblr.

The WordPress and tumblr platforms have many features of Facebook and Twitter. You can re-blog an article. Re-blogging is sharing someone else’s content on your blog; similar to a retweet. Your fellow bloggers can also like your post and comment on it, similar to Facebook. These features are great for engagement. Articles can be tagged with relevant terms. You can then search out these terms to see all posts on that topic. This is similar to a hashtag on Twitter or SEO.

WordPress and tumblr allows bloggers to share articles on various social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. You can use badges and plugins from your social networks to build a following and community. I have used this method to expand readership.

Guest blogging and syndication is another way to share your content. I am now syndicated on The Strategic HR blog.

Once you decide to start blogging, stick with it and publish quality content. Try to set up a writing schedule to maintain consistency. I shoot for once a week.

Blogging is a great way to get your message out. This is how you can build your brand with a blog.

Blogging is a great way to establish and market yourself as an expert. However, there is only so much you can write on a topic in a time period. This is where content curation comes into play. Besides writing, experts share articles and opinion of others in their field. This can come in the form of a retweet on Twitter, like on Facebook, +1 on Google plus and various other forms of re-sharing. However, if you want to curate content from multiple sources, an online newspaper comes in handy. This is where Paper. li comes in.

I use Paper.li to share content on sales, marketing and technology. This is a great way for me to engage my followers with the content and opinions of others in my field. People who are included in my papers frequently retweet the paper and mention me on Twitter.

Paper .li is a great site to publish online newspapers on your area of expertise. The site allows you to sign up using your Twitter or Facebook account. Papers are generated from your Facebook or Twitter feed. Setting up is easy. Once you go on the site, you will be asked to login with Facebook or Twitter. When I started, I decided to sign up with my Twitter account. Once I granted Paper.li access to my Twitter account,,

I was prompted to create my newspaper. You will need to create a title and subtitle for the paper along with how often you want your paper published. Paper. li provides publishers with three options: daily, morning +evening and Weekly.

Once you decide on the paper you want to create, you have the options of choosing hashtags from Twitter, RSS feeds, certain Twitter top accounts in the news, business, entertainment, tech and science, sports and leisure categories.Once you create your paper, you can schedule the time you want it to be published to Twitter and Facebook.

Another great feature of Paper. li is the editor’s note. The editor’s note allows you to market your product and services. This feature also let’s you provide background about yourself. I share both text and links to my various websites and blogs.

Another feature that I like is the Twitter feed under the Editor’s note. This a great way for readers to follow and engage with you on Twitter.

You can also search for people and content on the site. Readers who really like your paper can subscribe to your paper by email as well. This is similar to blog subscriptions via email.

Paper.li also offers a premium service where you can publish newsletters.

Google Analytics is a great way to monitor your efforts online. It allows you to see how many people are visiting your site, the duration of their visit, what content they are looking at and from what network. You can also see what country they are from. Another thing you could do is to set custom goals to check for certain things. The site allows you to measure the amount of traffic that comes from social networks. To access this, just click under the social tab under traffic sources. Google Analytics also lets you track your Adwords campaigns. I use Google Analytics for my website and tumblr blog.

Today I am going to discuss how to setup Google analytics for your website and blog. The first thing that you will need to get started is a Gmail account. Now with your Gmail account, go to the Google Analytics website. You will need to click the create an account button. Next you will be asked to login to you Gmail account. You will then be asked to create a profile and add the website URL that you want to track. You can also provide your time zone. Once you provide this, the site will provide you with a tracking code. Next, you will need to copy and paste this into the html section of each page of your website or blog. If you have done this correctly, you will see that the tracking code is installed.

You will start to see statistics about your visitors within a few hours. It is important to note that WordPress.com offers Google Analytics as a paid upgrade. WordPress provides users with a set of analytics.

Writing a blog is great way to share your ideas and market your expertise in an area. I began blogging back in November 2011. Blogging had connected me with so many great people around the globe. I began publishing on the WordPress platform. Recently, I began cross publishing my blog on Tumblr. In this post, I am going to discuss how to set up your blog on WordPress and Tumblr.

WordPress

The first thing that you need to do is to register on the site. You will have the option to create either a wordpress.com address or a custom domain name. I suggest that you pick a custom domain name because your blog will come up better in search results. WordPress gives you a choice of web suffixes to choose from, for example .com, .me etc. I chose the address http://dangalante.me. If you decide to change the address after you set up the blog that is ok. The wordpress.com address will automatically be directed to your new address. It is important to note that you will have to buy the domain name if you want your own. Hosting is inexpensive and should cost about $25 per year at most depending on the name you choose. The investment is well worth it because this will give your blog its own brand identity.

Once you register, you will see WordPress’s default theme. Click on the appearance tab and browse the free and premium themes that are available. You can then choose the one that you would like to install.

Now you are ready to write a post.

To do this, click on the new post tab. A window will pop up. Here you will find tools to write and edit your post. When you are ready to post, just click publish and you are ready to go.

Tumblr

Like WordPress, you will have to register on Tumblr to set up your blog. I have provided the link to the registration page. If you land on the home page, just click on the sign up button.

Once you have signed up, you will be prompted to create a web address. You will notice that the only address you could create is a tumblr.com address. Tumblr does not support or partner with site hosting companies. In other words, you will need to find a third party host on your own. I purchased a domain name from Yola.com . The name I purchased is http://askdangalante.com . Once I secured the name, I had to point the address to the Tumblr servers. (Tumblr provides the specific address and exactly what CNAME or A-Records need to be changed. Here is the link. You will know if this is correct if your address redirects to Tumblr and it say page not found.

You can test your domain address in the box under your Tumblr address in the blog settings. Your address will not link to the site right away. It took 24 hours; although it can take up to 72.

Now you can click on the customized theme and browse through the free and premium themes. Pick a theme and now you are ready to post. To post, click on the text tab which is located underneath the Dashboard tab. You will see a window where you can copy, paste, write and edit your posts. When you are done, just click the publish button.

As you can see, both WordPress and Tumblr is user friendly. All you have to do is start writing! My decision to start writing has been the best decision I have made. I wish I had started earlier!